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Slash meta #3 (and probably final): please discuss!
Thank you so much for those involved thus far! Feel free to ask friends who you think would be interested in sharing their views who may not know me from Eve's housecat and send them on over. All of these posts are public, but you do have to be a registered LJ'er. Women only, however, for this particular article.
My final question, and the crux in some ways of what I think I'll focus on for the article: if you're an R to NC-17 slasher, whether writing, reading, artist, viewer of art, vidder or video viewer, when the characters get intimate with one another, are you strictly a voyeur, do you do a bit of self-insert of a sort into one or both of the characters, or is it a combination? If a combination, does it depend on the pairing/fandom/something else? In other words, are you just watching the men together, or are you putting yourself into the action, but within the body of one or both of them? I'll be very interested to read your comments as this, I think, is what fascinates me the most. And hopefully will be interesting to Filament readers!
My final question, and the crux in some ways of what I think I'll focus on for the article: if you're an R to NC-17 slasher, whether writing, reading, artist, viewer of art, vidder or video viewer, when the characters get intimate with one another, are you strictly a voyeur, do you do a bit of self-insert of a sort into one or both of the characters, or is it a combination? If a combination, does it depend on the pairing/fandom/something else? In other words, are you just watching the men together, or are you putting yourself into the action, but within the body of one or both of them? I'll be very interested to read your comments as this, I think, is what fascinates me the most. And hopefully will be interesting to Filament readers!
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Does that make sense? I'm trying to have the action be as much like that of a character who has been through the background story that I invented for them, and not like me jumping into their story with a Mary Sue wish-fulfillment for me.
Is that what you're looking for?
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I think I would describe myself as strictly a voyeur. That being said, however, I do try to get into the characters' heads, to work out their motivations for wanting this, that or the other thing. And, more often than not, the characters' kinks are really kinks of my own that I get to play out in the form of fic.
I hope that's the kind of answer you're looking for. :/
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As a writer, on the other hand, I try very hard to actually be in the POV character. I feel like I write better when I'm strongly within that character's head, especially for writing sex which is always a challenge. I feel like my smut gets too clinical when I write as an observer.
Of course, whether a reader or a writer I'm more focused on the emotional connection between the characters than on the actual mechanics. I generally don't need minute detail to figure out what they're doing physically. A vivid imagination is a big help here! *laughs*
That said, a lot of the time in slash stories I skim over the sex rather than poring over it intensely. As I said before, I'm there for the characters and the development, not the porn. Unless the porn has something in it that shows how the sex is changing their perceptions / lives / relationships (or confirming it) it's just not that interesting to me.
Hope that helps or at least adds another data point!
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The more attracted I am to one of the males, the more likely I am to self insert as his partner…especially in visual mediums. I do that with hetero parings, too, so that’s not unique to slash.
For me, one of the real attractions of slash is watching two persons of equal standing come together. With M/F parings, the female is generally the weaker partner. She’s the one receiving the love. The male is almost always the aggressor. I like watching two males because either can give or receive. I like that there are no preconceptions or rules to their coupling. They will love each other in a way that feels natural to them.
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I think I switch back and forth between the heads of the two individuals when creating a love scene. So in a sense I am projecting myself as each of them drawing on different real life experiences and emotional memories. This might seem odd in a M/M situation, but really it is not--we're all human. I also do research and try to keep true to my characters' created backstories, but there is almost never a case, at my age, where as a writer I cannot find a comparable personal emotional and/or intellectual reaction to fit the story I am writing. I think I am less of self-inserter in that I am not actually working out fantasies, although I wouldn't mind trying that sometime (there is always biography also), but I am more like a method actor in my writing than a blatant self-insert or seeking to fulfill a personal fantasy. I probably couldn't write something that would really turn me off in a love scene, but those actions are not working out my favorite fantasies as much as telling a story, unraveling a tangle relating to two characters.
I do a lot of thinking and talking about how to get inside of the male head, but there is a weakness and a bias in my method also. I tend to be opinionated about what I want to say in a story, if I don't get the answer I want, I tend to keep interviewing and/or reading until I find an argument that the element I want to include is not, in fact, impossible. I have two or three gay friends who have been very generous at answering my specific (and sometimes embarrassing) questions. I also frequently have a finished love scene "vetted" by a man. I suppose if there is an insert in some of these scenes it might be based on their experiences rather than my own. But the emotional veracity is all me. I'm not afraid to trust myself. I really don't think men and women are all that different. Men tend to be more emotionally guarded in a love scene and women more physically reserved, but even in real life that breaks down at a certain point in all of the most interesting relationships. (My men talk a lot, but then in my real life, I have gravitated toward talky men and come from a culture of big talkers--ever hear of blarney?)
Parenthetically, I have found writing stories in the Wreaththu fandom has been liberating, because I don't have to do as much second-guessing and research on gender-specific details. In all my other stories, I try to make sure that my men come across as "real guys" and not some woman's fantasy of a guy and particularly not me playing out a personal fantasy. With the Wraeththu stories I can just let 'er rip. It's fun mixing the male and female strengths and weaknesses, preferences and dislikes, in a single character. I still think I write them mainly as guys (think that is done in the original canon sources as well). I've always loved the title of Wraethtu fanfic novel, Butterflies with Guns. Also, what is the other expression? Fight like a man, cry like a woman. But I try to spare the reader my gender bending in my male/male romances. I do love to read that sort of slant when it is directly put forward, but not when the writer expects us to believe these are two regular guys, who realistically ought to reflect the prejudices and hang-ups of the societies in which they live.
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I enjoy m/m pairings where one character has more power than the other. I don't enjoy m/f pairings where one character has more power, particularly if the more passive character is female. I can't help but identify with the female character and since it's so far from what I want in my own life right now I just get annoyed.
I also think of slashing as a very safe way of having sex as well. Not only is it fantasy but it's safe fantasy. I'm not fantasizing about my best friend's husband and possibly endangering my relationship with her, her husband or my husband.
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I think I mostly like to imagine being the character who gets to be with the one I would most like to be with. And if I'm in the pov of one of my oc's, I invent someone I would like to be with if I were them. But I don't imagine myself there! NEVER! I imagine being the character and experiencing what I imagine he would feel ,think, want, do, etc.
I prefer to write in the first person, but I also sometimes write as a voyeur. That is, I imagine a sex scene in my head like a movie. What the characters would say, their movements and facial expressions, etc. and then simply write it as I see it in my head.
When reading, I feel like I'm experiencing it but sometimes as one of the characters or both and sometimes as an observer.
Bottom line, either way I'm a self inserter only NEVER NEVER as myself!
Hope I'm making sense - if so, I guess that means there's a first time for everything. LOL!
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And yes, despite what I said about preferring the sensual aspect of them touching, I am perfectly happy reading or writing full-on porn as long as it's m/m! ;-)
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I am trying to imagine what directly writing personal erotic fantasies would look/feel like. I think identification is a different kind of activity.
If I were to write a pure and simple wish-fulfillment, self-insertion fantasy, it would probably involve something entirely different. Winter right now sounds good! Or uninterrupted privacy perhaps.
I remember my reaction to the old Schwarzenegger movie "Total Recall" (and no, I am not usually a Schwarzenegger movie fan) where people were able to take a "virtual vacation." Now that was a fantasy so sweet that it almost broke my heart with longing at that period in my life. Working two challenging jobs, with a pain in the ass of an attention-sucking life partner, and two young kids, the idea of checking in for a virtual two-week or longer vacation and only losing a few minutes of real time was a wish fulfillment that trumped the hottest sex for me at that moment. I was also young enough, as was the aforementioned partner, that real life hot sex wasn't that elusive either. It just wasn't enough. Time was the precious unattainable fantasy.
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Yes, that's an interesting approach to thinking about the voyeur vs.self insert type thing. I agree that I was actually trying to write myself into an erotic fantasy, it would not be the same thing as writing any of my characters, whether male or female into a sex scene or any kind of a scene actually. There is not only a degree of removal from self when creating characters, but there is the situation you've set up within the story that helps determine what they do. The characters may have a degree of me in them, certainly they do or I couldn't be creating them, but they are not me. However, now that I think about it, even if I was writing myself into a scene, it would still be myself as a character rather than the totality of who I really am. Huh, convoluted.
The Total Recall fantasy is a potent one. I've often thought of writing a sci fi story in which this is possible. I think many people would never leave the house. LOL.
The whole time factor thing too, going for two weeks mentally and it really only is a few minutes. How disorienting.
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Convoluted, but I completely understand what you are saying. I used my daughter as a model for a character in a novel (epic-length which is still in progress). As time goes by they move farther apart: 1) my daughter has grown up since then; 2) it was never really my daughter anyway, but only aspects of her, and the plot and the fictional character's choices distance them from one another as well.
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